Textbook Battle in Texas
The Texas State Board of Education has nominated several well-known creationists to review high school biology textbooks. Our friends at the amazing and indefatigable Texas Freedom Network have written with alarm about this developing situation. The state board, after hearing from their reviewers, will vote this November to adopt certain science textbooks for Texas’ vast market. Such texts must meet the problematic standards the SBOE adopted in the contentious 2009 hearings, and “could be in the state’s public school science classrooms for nearly a decade.”
TFN:
Among the six creationist reviewers are some of the nation’s leading opponents of teaching students that evolution is established, mainstream science and is overwhelmingly supported by well over a century of research …… That relatively small overall number of reviewers could give creationists even stronger influence over textbook content. In fact, publishers are making changes to their textbooks based on objections they hear from the review panelists. And that’s happening essentially behind closed doors because the public isn’t able to monitor discussions among the review panelists themselves or between panelists and publishers.
More: Textbook Battle in Texas